Aspects of the present invention relate in general to rule-based systems and more particularly, to identifying a group of products relevant to data provided by a user through rule-based systems.
Many businesses offer a wide range of products. Different products may be suitable for different customers due to the variance in customer needs. Furthermore, for some types of products, such as financial products, customers may be required to meet certain qualification requirements in order to purchase a product. Thus, for a business that offers a great variety of products with different features and qualification requirements, it is often prudent to first determine which of the products are applicable to the needs and qualifications of a particular customer, and then allow the customer to browse among the reduced set of applicable products. This sorting of products is often accomplished using specialized software. However, for businesses providing products which change rapidly in response to external factors (e.g., market conditions), it may be difficult to maintain software to help manage the sale of their products.
The use of rule-based systems by businesses to manage product portfolios has steadily increased in recent years. Rule-based systems may be used to store data and manipulate that data to obtain desired information based on a list of rules and facts, as opposed to standard programming languages in which a sequence of instructions is executed. Logical inferences may then be made from those facts and rules. Rule-based systems generally make use of a logical reasoner function which is responsible for making the logical inferences. A logical reasoner may also detect conflicts within a set of facts and rules.